Güero - Sivu - Mighty Poplar

Güero - Streams of Light.

Sacramento quartet Güero have returned a new single "Streams Of Light" this week, to announce their sophomore full-length album, Wednesdays, for an April 7 release via Dutch Records. Discussing “Streams of Light”, bassist Russell Volksen noted, "This song really has that doo-wop vibe, like Sam Cooke, The Ronnettes, etc. Russell always loved those songs, so he wrote the chord progression after listening to a lot of Black Marble and envisioned it as more of a dreamy pop song with an eight-note style bassline.

Rik came up with a vocal melody and the guitar riff. The catchiness of the ‘Streams of Light’ lyric gave Shea the idea to put together a three-part harmony to sit underneath Rik's vocals on the chorus and outro. Rik's vocal melody and lyrics give you subtle references to the era while allowing it to remain modern and original. It conjures different images in your mind but isn’t specific to one thing.

Through the course of playing this song as a band, it really morphed into the doo-wop style that it is now. Mike immediately gave it a signature feel with the boom-chick-chick, boom-chick rhythm on the drums, which after hearing it, we wanted that rhythm to start and the song. As the song began to take its final shape, Russell drew inspiration from 'Stand By Me' when finalizing his bassline. 

Shea came up with the rhythmic chords on the keys to cement the swing and dance feel to it. He also added a pulsing vibrato, short delay and a ton of reverb to help give the keys a traditional tone to the genre.  We really wanted to pay homage to something we love while keeping our individuality. It’s fun to have different styles of songs to play and this one feels like a real pop song."

 


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Sivu - Wild Horse Running.

Sivu (aka British songwriter James Page) returns with a new single "Wild Horse Running" - the first new music to heard from him in five years, following his widely acclaimed albums Sweet Sweet Silent (2017) and Something On High (2014).

Produced by long time collaborator Charlie Andrew - the Brit-winning, Grammy-nominated producer responsible for the tender, soaring styles of Alt-J, London Grammar and Marika Hackman - "Wild Horse Running" provides a glimpse into Page's renewed and galvanised sense of purpose and resilience, both as a songwriter and as a human. The song's release arrives alongside the announcement of an intimate headline show at Blue Moon in Cambridge on 25th February.

Borne from a need to escape - "Wild Horse Running" merges warbling electronic bass lines with delicate stabs of piano, as Page's unmistakeable falsetto glistens, shining through the compelling arrangements. "I’m a man / Still with something to prove", he offers in the track's opening verse - by his own admittance, a mockery of his own ego - which he quickly resolves - "I’m a man / I know it all means nothing in truth".

Delving more into the track's lyrical themes, Page said: ''Wild Horse Running' grew from this yearning to escape, whether mentally or physically I’m still unsure - but to me the image of a wild horse running is the epitome of freedom and conjures so many feelings of strength, resilience and really a triumph in physical evolution. From there the song just grew in my mind, with an almost cinematic view in my head.

I played on that imagery also, within the song mocking myself and my own male ego having this constant need to improve and selfishly fulfil my own desires over anyone else’s needs in the pre chorus, “I’m A man, I’m a man, still with something to prove, I’m a man, still I know it all means nothing in truth”. I think ultimately the song is just me trying to convince myself I’m not done yet and still have something to contribute. It’s incredibly self indulgent but a general battle I face within my core as a musician and now father."

 


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Mighty Poplar - Up on the Divide.

Free Dirt Records is proud to announce the self-titled debut album from new roots music supergroup Mighty Poplar. Bringing together Andrew Marlin from Watchhouse, Noam Pikelny and Chris Eldridge from Punch Brothers, Greg Garrison (Leftover Salmon), and Alex Hargreaves (Billy Strings), Mighty Poplar was formed as a vehicle for these artists to explore their love of improvisation through straight ahead bluegrass.

Mighty Poplar’s first single, “Up on the Divide,” was released today. It’s a beautiful song from the pen of cowboy poet and songwriter Martha Scanlan. At its heart, bluegrass music is about what happens when you commit to the moment. The joy of improvisation keeps the music fresh, and the fun of crafting ideas on the fly keeps the musicians on their toes. This true spirit of bluegrass infuses the self-titled record from Mighty Poplar, coming March 31, 2023 on Free Dirt Records. Regarded as some of the finest players of their generation, the playing is never showy and always in service of the song.

Though Pikelny, Eldridge, Garrison all knew each other from their early work with Punch Brothers, impromptu backstage jams with Marlin at festivals across the country were the key that unlocked the project. A lifelong song collector, Marlin selected and sang lead on most of the songs here, bringing classics as well as deep cuts from greats like Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard, John Hartford, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Norman Blake. Throughout, the songs and tunes are as immediate and emotionally impactful as the playing is tasteful. Gathered knee-to-knee in a rural studio outside Nashville, the collaborative 10-track album emerged organically over a few days.

“It felt so special and effortless; it didn’t take work,” says Eldridge, “other than the work and effort we’ve put in the rest of our lives.” With their debut album, Mighty Poplar has captured the fierce and playful energy of an all-night jam between old friends who just happen to be grandmasters of the music.

Frankie Rose - L.T.Leif - Annie Stokes

Frankie Rose - Sixteen Ways.

"Counting the ways that things can unexpectedly fall apart on you before anything has even happened yet! The song 'Sixteen Ways' is about anticipation and getting your hopes up while simultaneously making lists in your head about how it can’t possibly work in out in your favor” -Frankie Rose

"Sixteen Ways" (out today) is the second single from Frankie Rose's new LP Love as Projection, her fifth overall, due March 10.

After spending nearly two decades establishing herself across New York and Los Angeles independent music circles, Frankie Rose returns after six years with a fresh form, aesthetic, and ethos embodied in her new full-length album Love As Projection, out March 10 on Slumberland. Celebrated by countless critical and cultural outlets over the years for her expansive approach to songwriting, lush atmospherics, and transcendent vocal melodies and harmonies, Love As Projection is a reintroduction of her established style through the new lens of contemporary electronic pop.

Painstakingly written, recorded, and engineered through some of the most tumultuous times in history, this new collection of songs harnesses the power and propulsion of Frankie’s early DIY-centric punk days without losing sight of the immersive, dreamlike world-building she’s been known for in recent years. Her love of new wave hooks and post-punk drive remain omnipresent, elevated by her utilization of modern production and an improved, polished palate of state-of-the-art instrumentation.

It’s more than a rebirth, a refinement, a resurgence – it’s a culmination of influence, a newly-defined scope using the tools at her disposal, a long-form project that was heavily considered for half of a decade – resulting in the most personal and accessible collection of art-pop that Frankie has delivered yet, propelling her signature melodies and dense, ethereal harmonies into the future.

 

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L.T.Leif - Gentle Moon.

Musician and artist L.T.Leif has shared "Gentle Moon" the opening track to the new LP, Come Back to Me, but Lightly, out now on Lost Map Records and OK Pal.

"Gentle Moon" is a long-distance love song, sung across lockdown and two seas. There is both an acceptance of distance, and a deep, unspoken longing for something different. It speaks to the push and pull of relationship, the elliptical and powerful movements of coming together and moving away again.

Ultimately, it's about getting thrown off of your own orbit by the needs or ideas of others, and that hard work of finding yourself again through your own body. Long treasured collaborator, Dallin Ursenbach, recorded this duet onto his cell phone while in isolation. I love how it touches on the spookiness of digital interactions, especially with someone known deeply, tangibly, and through your real life lived.

Come Back to Me, but Lightly is in large part inspired by the Northern sun, with references to celestial objects and the distances therein contained, from the perspective of a human here standing and thinking on the earth. I was drawn to these as both symbols of longing and warmth, and of shared experience or connection across the abstraction of distance.

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Annie Stokes - Goldenrod.

Over the course of the pandemic, during Annie’s first pregnancy, she took an online course on medicinal herbalism and learned that the vast majority of what Western gardeners consider "weeds" are actually medicinal plants with physical and spiritual attributes. “At the time, my community was struggling with political and cultural differences that seemed destined to tear us apart,” shares Annie. “I started to think about what it would look and feel like to love the weeds in your yard, and the people in your life, without trying to curate or change them.”

“Goldenrod” comes from Annie’s upcoming EP, Wild Rose, out March 2023. Annie Stokes is a dark Americana songstress and folk lyricist from the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in northern Virginia. Raised on musical theater and her mom's oldies, she began writing poetry and short stories at a young age. When she picked up a guitar at age 20, everything clicked and she fulfilled her destiny of becoming an emotional millennial troubadour.

"I like a hook, and I like a song that dredges up specific memories and feelings, rather than generic rushes of serotonin," she says of her songwriting style. "From the beginning, I would get inspired by snippets of conversations I would hear, or certain smells, or little moments."

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Logan Springer & the Wonderfully Wild - Kassi Valazza - H.C McEntire

Logan Springer & the Wonderfully Wild - Greenbacks and Gold.

Logan Springer & the Wonderfully Wild released their Americana Rock single, “Greenbacks and Gold” a couple of days ago. It’s off the album “Crow” due out March 3. A take on the anti-work movement, the song revolves around the idea of no longer dedicating your life to working for “the man” without being able to get ahead or partaking in the fruits of one’s labor.

“Greenbacks and Gold” tells the story of a blue-collar strip mine/gravel pit worker who is fed up with breaking his back for the profits of “The Man” who only takes from his town and keeps the workers on the verge of destitution. Romanticizing stickin’ it to the man, the narrator plans to rob the bank the strip mine uses to hold their profits. Springer says, “Growing up, I heard a lot of conversations like this; a lot of laborers are disillusioned by working their lives away for a big corporation but realized they have no other options.”

“Greenbacks and Gold” centers itself amongst the seasonal imagery and rural Midwest landscapes that can be found on the album. “Crow” navigates life in an uncertain world, telling the untold stories of rural, blue-collar life – the real problems Springer, his family, and neighbors have had.

Crow extends the theme of misunderstood animals that first occurred on Springer’s solo album, “Coyote – ‘kī-yōte.” Crows are thought to be dirty, trash birds when, in reality, they are incredibly intelligent and capable of learning. Springer says, “Your typical country song is like the social media of music; it only shows the good parts. I want to show what life out in the middle is really like, without all of the polish.”

The band recorded the album at Flat Black, a studio built in a 100-year-old barn on a farmstead in rural Iowa, as an homage to Springer’s home growing up. 

Logan Springer & The Wonderfully Wild · Greenbacks and Gold

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Kassi Valazza - Watching Planes Go By.

Portland, Oregon-based artist Kassi Valazza has signed with Loose (Margo Cilker, Jim White) for her forthcoming new album Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing set to release on May 26. Now she is sharing the first single from the 10-song set, “Watching Planes Go By,” which UNCUT calls a “slow-burning mix of Americana and Paisley Underground psych” as the opening track on their Sounds of the New West Vol 6 disc.

There has been a cult-like fascination growing around Valazza since the self-release of her 2019 debut album Dear Dead Days, which she followed with a surprise digital EP called Highway Sounds last year. She is seated squarely at the vanguard of new American songwriters strengthening and broadening the sound of country and western, both bearing the torch and bending the arc of roots music.

On Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing, the singer-songwriter uses the physical world around her to paint metaphors from the soul, carrying us through her mind and heart as an effortless narrator. Her gutsy and graceful vocal poetry is backed by swirling Western psychedelia created by multi-instrumentalists from Portland band TK & the Holy Know-Nothings. Though the music plays country cousin to British folk, calling to mind greats like Sandy Denny (Fairport Convention) and Karen Dalton, a Southwestern American streak carves its way through these solemn, sweetly sung melodies like a canyon.

"Watching Planes Go By” spins a cautionary tale about the dangers of standing still in life and accepting one's own fate. The song sets a curious and cosmic atmosphere of psychedelic folk-rock as Valazza reflects on the struggles of moving on, "Autumn leaves turn to yellow / and green turns to jealousy / Watching days go by." Valazza captures the romanticism of country crooners with the intuition of a realist poet, exploring themes of love and longing through metaphors from the natural world.

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H.C McEntire - Shadows.

H.C. McEntire releases her celebrated new album Every Acre via Merge Records. Along with the release, she shares a music video for “Shadows” feat. S.G. Goodman, a quiet rumination on surrender and loss, reminiscing and moving on.

“Like several of the songs on Every Acre, ‘Shadows’ is a result of a steady and balanced assembling of instincts between me and Luke,” explains McEntire. “We slowly and remotely wove together loose threads until we had something that resembled squares of cloth, eventually collecting enough of them to start stitching a quilt. He would send me instrumental voice memo recordings of chord progressions or guitar riffs—giving them funny titles we could remember, like ‘Boy Orbison’ and ‘Swamp Creature’—and I would take those and start building a world around them, adding vocal melodies and establishing some structure and eventually lyrics. ‘Shadows’ was the first of these collaborations, and it’s a great example of how Luke and I worked together on this album.”

Co-produced by McEntire, Missy Thangs and Luke Norton, Every Acre explores the acres of our physical and emotional homes, as she grapples with existential themes of grief, loss, and links to land and loved ones with an unwavering honesty. The album has received widespread acclaim from press including Rolling Stone, Guitar World, Under The Radar, BrooklynVegan, Our Culture, The Boot, No Depression and more. Pitchfork named it one of their “Most Anticipated Albums of 2023,” and Stereogum called “Rows of Clover” “a hell of a song, a soulful folk-rock outpouring.” McEntire is currently featured on the cover of INDY Week, and her single “New View” was recently hailed by NPR Music as “a song that evokes the winsome austerity of autumn via understated instrumentation reverberating with a warmth and sonic expansiveness reminiscent of Daniel Lanois' Acadie.”

Raised in the Blue Ridge foothills of rural Appalachia before earning her B.F.A. in Creative Writing, H.C. McEntire first established a reputation for her raw, soulful voice as frontwoman of Mount Moriah and later as a backup singer in Angel Olsen’s band. Her third solo effort, Every Acre is the follow-up to McEntire’s 2020 release Eno Axis and 2018 solo debut LIONHEART.

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Megan Brickwood - Holly Henderson - Michael J. Benjamin

Megan Brickwood - Trinity River Blues.

The rising musician, singer, and songstress Megan Brickwood is excited to announce that her upcoming EP Fifth Mile will be released on February 24, 2023. To mark the occasion, the artist has shared the first single from the EP "Trinity River Blues."

"'Trinity River Blues' is the first song I wrote in an open tuning," Brickwood explains. "I became interested in open tunings studying Joni Mitchell and Nick Drake. This DADGAD tuning was the first I tried, and it completely caught my imagination.

The idea for writing a song called 'Trinity River Blues' popped into my head one day while I wandered around by the Trinity River, feeling lonely and melancholy. Some weeks later when I was back in Los Angeles, working out of my little home studio, I started writing this DADGAD song that I initially conceived of as 'Colors in the Stream.' After I’d written the whole thing, I looked over the lyrics and realized that the song I’d written was 'Trinity River Blues.'"

“The creation of the videos was an adventure,” Brickwood exclaims. “I met Hannah, the co-creator and director for the ‘Trinity River Blues’ video through mutual friends in Redding, CA and we spent a lot of time scouting locations in the areas I’d spent exploring in my youth. ‘Trinity River Blues’ was filmed in McCloud, downtown Weaverville, and at Lewiston Lake. Since both of those songs draw heavily on my experiences in this part of the world, I wanted the videos to reflect that.”

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Holly Henderson - Wendy.

With her new single “Wendy”, Holly Henderson is further teasing her second album, “The Walls”, following the release of last year’s acclaimed single “The Planes”, which Clash Magazine described thus: “bejewelled psych-pop with folk qualities, her work has a haunting after-effect that can’t be shrugged off.”

The long-awaited sophomore release from the UK alternative singer-songwriter brings a very different side to Holly’s musicality and depth. While her debut album, “Monday Green” featured Holly’s impressive rock guitar work and alternative pop anthem prowess, her new work shows a more introspective, and slightly more delicate side to her songcraft.

“Wendy” is a uniquely fresh, yet retro infused ballad, told from the story of a person leaving their dog “Wendy” at home and promising her that she hasn’t been abandoned. It begins with the familiar whimsy and folk sentiments of Holly’s arrangements, and her dreamy, ethereal storyteller vocals. But as the band creep in, and Wendy’s world grows darker and colder, the warmth of the band, as more drums, percussion, guitars, mandolins and harmonies sweep in to remind Wendy, and anyone else listening, that they are never alone.

Recorded in a farmhouse in the English countryside, Holly’s new album “The Walls” brings Holly full circle from her previous Los Angeles recorded album. Finely crafted arrangements, sonic musings, and playful themes take us on a journey with Holly as she deconstructs her Brit Pop and classic influences and reassembles them into progressive-folk wonderment.

On “The Walls”, Holly said, “This album sits within a sense of place. As a songwriter, I can only speak of my own thoughts of home and belonging. I suppose this record is a wandering eye over the fleeting moments from the last few years, of when I felt at home, and when I didn’t. When I felt like the walls were tumbling, when they kept me safe, and when they became my prison. I learned the only way of breaking these patterns, was to let people step over the threshold.

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Michael J. Benjamin - The Deal Has Long Gone Down.

Evoking the likes of Johnny Cash or Leonard Cohen, “The Deal Has Long Gone Down” is a masterclass in mature and measured music-making. With gallant vocals that weave themselves niftily amongst genial plucking guitars, the poignant new track serves as both an introduction to the artist and a testament to his mastered craft. A song stricken with a paranoia for a world spinning ever more rapidly out of control, Benjamin says of the new release:

“The Deal Has Long Gone Down is difficult to pin down. I guess it expresses my fears for the modern climate we all live in, a changing world in danger of moving towards something dark and despairing. When the fortune-teller at the crossroads loses belief, you know it’s tough times ahead.”

Staking his place as a young musician set to shake things up, Michael’s soulful songs express a hard-won sense of authority: embracing the world with an engrossing, truth-seeking style of writing which belies his still-tender years.

Like most other millennials, Michael J Benjamin grew up with the entire history of music readily available at the click of a mouse. He embraced himself in the heroes of old, immersing himself in the works of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen, Joni Mitchell, Johnny Cash and Paul McCartney, before finding more modern realms of influence in the songbooks of Lana Del Rey, Weyes Blood and Jack Antonoff.

And while many of his musical favourites are American, Michael’s literary influences have a distinctly European flavour with Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud and Hugo all seeping into the way he looks at his art. His songs flourish in a self-made world of creeping dusk, ever-aware of the foreboding, Lynchian darkness which will inevitably follow.

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